


Forego the Interest

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Category: Batman Beyond
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-15
Updated: 2003-10-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 18:38:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was once a girl who dared visit the strange cat-lady.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forego the Interest

Curiosity tended to have a short lifespan in Gotham City. The trait itself wasn’t always lethal, just inconvenient. And Gothamites – as they were referred to by some – didn’t much like inconvenience.

Little Jamie Herring, of Apartment C-1201 Block H of the Lee Apartment Building (named such not because its owner was a man named Lee, but because it was in the lee of the old Baron Osborne Comm tower), didn’t think she was a curious person. In fact, she got bored as easily as most people got curious.

For example, Little Jamie lived on Level 12 of Block H. There were 18 Levels in all, but she’d never ventured above her own. In fact, the seven-year-old girl rarely left the comfort of her own apartment – something perhaps her mother ought to have looked into considering there was a little thing called school that should have already become part of Little Jamie’s life.

To Little Jamie, Gotham City was all shadows and angles – you see them once, you’ve seen them all. There were windows, but she rarely looked out. There was television, but she rarely watched. Most of her time was spent by the comm, where she would read the books she’d downloaded from the local library database. It was the assumption of most that a little girl who read a lot tended to have a wild imagination and an equally ferocious sense of curiosity. Perhaps it was just that Little Jamie lost the ability to nurture either.

It was late winter when Little Jamie found the kitten. It was all black, and had bright blue eyes that shone like the sky Gotham wished it had. While Little Jamie had little interest in animals, she was not a cruel child. She took it from the little box left on the staircase, wrapped it in blankets, and kept it under her bed. Her mother thought it was a lovely gesture of Little Jamie to rescue the kitten, and gladly provided what little food and milk they were able to afford.

By the time next year’s summer came around, the little kitten had gotten restless. Little Jamie had never been restless before, and didn’t know what to make of it. She decided to let the kitten – which, in fact, was more of a cat than a kitten by then – out of the apartment for a few hours at a time.

It was one particular Wednesday, when Little Jamie was in the middle of preparing her lunch, that the not-kitten returned to the apartment, meowing at the top of its little lungs. Little Jamie picked it up, and made her first ever exclamation of surprise when she felt the warm blood soak her palm.

The not-kitten clung desperately on to Little Jamie’s sweatshirt, and the soft mewling it made sounded more and more like helpless whimpering to Little Jamie’s ears.

Little Jamie knew nothing about how to help the kitten. She didn’t know where the nearest vet was, and even if she did, how to get there. Flickers of panic passed through Little Jamie’s mind, but she quickly pushed them down to focus on the problem at hand. She needed to get help for the not-kitten, and she’d have to venture outside to get it.

She dressed up, locked the apartment and bundled the not-kitten in an old towel which she held in her arms. She started to head for the elevators, when the sound of barking made her stop. There was a dog on Level 12, and considering the way the not-kitten shrieked and burrowed deeper into Little Jamie’s arms, it was the one responsible for its injury.

Little Jamie felt a rage right then. It started somewhere in her gut, and curled outward slowly like an ocean wave.

So she parted her little girl lips, bared her little girl teeth and let out a sharp hiss.

The dog stopped barking, and stared at her. Little Jamie hissed again, and the dog seemed to come to the decision that the situation was not in its favour, and bolted down the other way, its tail between its legs.

Little Jamie felt pleased with herself. But then she remembered that she still had a serious problem at hand.

Turning around, she suddenly saw that there had been a spectator to the proceedings. It was a grown-up cat, with orange-brown fur and a long bushy tail. It was staring straight at her with its deep yellow eyes, as though in contemplation. Little Jamie thought it only proper to return the favour.

Then the orange-brown cat suddenly turned away. But unlike the dog that had turned to flee, this one seemed to be turning in invitation. It padded confidently up the staircase, flicking its tail almost absent-mindedly as it did so. Little Jamie considered for a moment, and decided to follow.

Previously, Little Jamie had never ventured above Level 12. But the orange-brown cat did not know that, and swiftly leapt up stairs, every now and then pausing to as though to make sure its guest was following. Little Jamie was out of breath by the time the orange-brown decided they’d travelled far enough, and it was only then that she realised she’d arrived at Level 19.

Level 19 was the rooftop of Block C of the Lee Apartment Building. There was an old helipad there, faded away and hidden underneath layers of graffiti, but that was not its most surprising feature.

Near one of the edges of the flat rooftop was a structure as close to a cottage as one could get in Gotham City. It, too, had its fair share of shadows and planes – being little more than a box made out of bricks – but there was something about it that pulled at Little Jamie. She walked toward it, ignoring the roar of the hovercrafts abovehead and the smog that twirled around her, and it was only when she was standing in front of the heavy bolted door that she realised how inappropriate she was being.

Before she could turn away, the heavy door opened. A tall woman stood there, and for a brief moment Little Jamie was afraid.

It was the eyes, Little Jamie would recall later on. The tall woman had eyes that were sharp and alert as though they’d forgotten to age away like the rest of her. Long, almost white hair was let loose around her angular shoulders, which was only enhanced by the dark full-length robe she was wearing. By proper definition she was an old lady, but Little Jamie was pretty sure that old ladies didn’t exude confidence and power so effortlessly.

“What happened to your cat?” the lady said, her voice sharp but not unkind.

“There was a dog on Level 12,” Little Jamie replied.

“Dogs aren’t allowed above Level 5.”

“I know.”

The tall lady turned away and disappeared into the depths of the brick cottage, with the same almost absent-mindedness the orange-brown cat had earlier.

“No shoes,” the lady’s voice called out from the depth of the brick cottage.

Little Jamie kicked off her little sneakers and stepped past the threshold, noting with surprise the soft carpeting on the floor. She nudged the heavy door shut with her shoulder, but not before letting the orange-brown cat enter before her.

There was little furniture in what Little Jamie could only assume was the living room. It certainly was more spacious than it looked on the outside without any physical trappings, and all the cats that were lounging about seemed to agree. Little Jamie had never seen so many cats in one place at one time, but did not let it bother her.

“What’s her name?”

Little Jamie started with surprise, not having heard the tall lady approach her. “I didn’t name her.”

The old lady seemed to find Little Jamie’s response amusing. “Cats name themselves.” Her smile was surprisingly genuine. “Pass her here.”

Little Jamie did as she was told, and watched as the old lady carefully placed the little bundle containing the not-kitten on a table. Her fingers were long and thin, with smooth nails that looked like they’d been cared for well. In fact, Little Jamie got the impression that the tall lady was more fit that she ought to be, and that she had simply refused to age out of sheer will.

“I didn’t know anyone lived on Level 19,” Little Jamie said.

“I pay well for my privacy,” the lady said.

“For your cats,” Little Jamie said, nodding at the ones that had curled at the tall lady’s feet.

“They aren’t mine,” the tall lady said. “We simply… get along, as it were.”

Little Jamie nodded with understanding, reaching out to stroke the not-kitten gently behind the ears. “I get along with her.”

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” the tall lady asked.

“I suppose,” Little Jamie answered with an easy shrug.

The tall lady suddenly turned her full attention onto Jamie, with those bright eyes that sparkled like sharp diamonds. The lady had been beautiful, once. She was still beautiful, but now in a different way. It was the way she carried herself, with a self-assured confidence that suggested she’d figured out some great big cosmic joke.

Then she smiled, slowly, and her teeth seemed sharper than they really were. “You know, it’s dangerous for a young girl like you go wondering around and entering people’s homes like this. I could be a homicidal psychopath for all you know.”

Little Jamie shrugged again. “I suppose.”

“Your mother might be worried,” the lady suggested.

“She’s working.”

The lady didn’t ask anymore, and neither did Little Jamie. They spent the next half hour in silence, while the cats around them went on their merry way. The black not-kitten was tended to and didn’t up any sort of fuss as the lady treated and dressed her wound.

Little Jamie returned to Level 12 with the not-kitten purring happily in her arms, and was just about ready to unlock the door to her apartment when she saw the dog again.

It was not halfway down the hallway, tilting its head this way and that as though trying to decide what Little Jamie was. She simply blinked at it.

“Bad dog! What are you doing up here?”

Little Jamie watched as a young boy ran past her and toward the dog.

“There are no dogs allowed about Level 5,” Little Jamie told the boy.

The boy looked up in surprise, as though he hadn’t seen her standing there. “Yeah well, what the superintendent doesn’t know won’t hurt them, innit?”

Little Jamie simply looked at the dog, which whimpered under its breath.

Strong and quick footsteps announced the arrival of someone else ascending the stairwell, and the boy cursed under his breath. Little Jamie turned just in time to watch the boy’s mother approach him – and she knew it was his mother because only his mother would look at him with such ferocity.

“Terry! What are you doing with that dog?” his mother snapped.

“Mom!” the boy whined. “I found him!”

“You know there are no dogs allowed up here!”

“But he followed me home!”

Then followed another flow of scolding from the mother and whining from the boy, all of which Little Jamie ignored. She simply went back to her apartment, put the not-kitten in her basket under the bed and turned on the comm on her bedside table to read.

  


* * *

That particular trip to the lady on Level 19 would be the first visit of many Little Jamie would make, although each time there would be little each person actually says to each other as it’d be more about basking in the company. Eventually the lady would ask Little Jamie to bring up newspapers and the such, and by the time Little Jamie hits teenhood, the lady would take up to pasting up certain articles on the living room wall. Little Jamie would have no interest whatsoever in a guy who dresses up as a flying rodent, but she’d never criticise the lady’s choice of wall decoration.

Not too long afterward, though, Little Jamie’s mother would die in a train wreck. It’d be initiated by one disgruntled worker, and the man in the flying rodent suit would attempt to save the passengers, but fail. Little Jamie would be devastated, but incapable of shedding tears. The apartment would be given up, and what money Little Jamie’s mother had saved up would be snapped up by creditors. Then the little animal sanctuary that Little Jamie had been working at would be bought over by Gotham Industrial Motors, leaving Little Jamie with nothing.

And then, the tall lady would take Little Jamie to another room of the little brick cottage, and ask her a question.

“Have you ever heard of the term ‘curiosity killed the cat’?”

Little Jamie – who by then would be not-so-little Jamie - would nod quietly.

Then lady would open a small box revealing an old whip nestled in leather, and say in that little teasing way of hers, “It’s absolute bullshit. Now let me tell you a story. A true story in fact, which happened not too long ago in a place and situation you just may find familiar.”


End file.
